"You will be my Canadian daughter, for a child is someone who changes the life of their mother."
"All the years that I have been hosting students from KULE, I have never met a student as determined to make a difference as yourself. Don't ever change."
"It's people like you, traveling all the way across the world to help others, that will really make the difference this world needs."
"I wish I could come to your country, I wish I could meet your friends."
"I thank god everyday that I have all of you as my angels."
It was easy to fall in love with Kenya. The culture, the music, the land, and the people. No matter what situation they seemed to find themselves in, there were always happy. No matter where you were, a smile could be found. It was hard to be sad as you walked through the slums, for when you looked down at the face of the child holding your hand, and how they smiled up at you as if you were their very own superhero, it was impossible not to smile as well. When the teacher kissed my forehead, when the children laughed as we tossed them into the air, when everyone thanked us for the work we were doing, when we exchanged knowing glances between others in the group, it was impossible not to smile. Even though the reality was that it was not perfect. Not at all, far from it in fact.
Children running around naked because their parents couldn’t afford to get them clothing, murky water filled with garbage and human waste floating down the streets of the slums, people living in huts only slightly bigger than jail cells, children living on small meals of ugali (a filler made with just flour and water) and perhaps some beans…. The list goes on and on. It was hard, for never in my life had I experienced such opposite emotions at the same time. The thing that made all the difference though, was their hope. I cry now as I think about it. No matter how bad it was, whether they were living in the slums, had lost their parents to AIDS or had their family taken away from them for a reason as pathetic as not being able to pay a dowry, they still had hope. Hope that it would be a better day tomorrow, hope that their future would be brighter. Seeing how these people lived in such poor conditions, experiencing things that you would pray no one else would ever have to go through and having barely anything to live on.... It broke your heart. But the way they believed, the way they had so much hope, it just consumed you. I used to think my life was hard with all the challenges I have had to face during my life, but after going to Kenya…
I will never be able to properly explain what I experienced in Kenya and how greatly it changed me. To be able to understand what we, as a group, experienced whilst in Kenya, you would have to go yourself. Today while at work, I talked to a man that recently donated $15,000 to a village in Rwanda so that every family had a home, clothes on their backs, clean water and enough food. As I told him about my trip, he said something that basically sums up my time in Kenya. “No matter how many times people tell you that you have accomplished so much, you will never truly be able to feel like you did enough. Just remember though, that they are one step closer to a better future because of you. You changed their lives, just as they changed yours.”
3 weeks is all it took; to step out of my comfort zone, to take risks, to see the world through different eyes,to meet someone that changed my life and will continue to do so, to fall in love, to make a difference. My life changed in the summer of 2010. The summer I went to Kenya.
No comments:
Post a Comment